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		Exploding Garrmondo Weiner Interactive Swiss Army Penis
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Andrew's

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Jun 23, 2012 - 11:41 PM

Musicology keeps on.

Last May, I graduated from LSU with a Masters of Music in musicology with a minor in music theory. I am good to go to begin the PhD at LSU in the fall. All is well.

[3]

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[public entry #14]

Apr 25, 2011 - 12:03 AM

New premiere!

Last year, I wrote a little ditty to make fun of James Horner, setting the text, "Let not your heart be troubled." After writing it, my old choir director insisted on performing it with the university chamber singers, so I obliged. I don't mind my illegitimate little works being performed, certainly. Not long afterward, my church choir down in Baton Rouge took interest in it and is planning on doing it sometime soon. In the meantime, the Louisiana State University chamber singers also wanted to do it, so they performed it on April 5, 2011, which happened to be the same night it premiered in Cleveland, MS, by my home choir.

Someone in attendance at the April 5 Cleveland performance had a little voice recorder and recorded it for me to hear (since I was in Baton Rouge performing it that night). It is here: http://www.archive.org/details/DsuEv...5.11-OwenPiece

I hope to have the LSU recording soon.

The recorders didn't quite make it to the second DSU performance of it last Sunday, but it did go quite well. I was able not only to be present at that performance, but I also sang with them, sightreading the Howells Mag and Nunc (St. Paul's), in addition to singing my piece.

DSU plans on performing it again this week at First UMC in Cleveland, MS, for the spring concert.

It ain't that good, folks.

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[public entry #13]

Apr 13, 2011 - 09:21 PM

Been a while!

I couldn't help but to notice it had been upwards of three years since I last posted. I am glad I haven't been purged from the member list.

An update: I am nearing the end of my musicology masters program, working on a thesis about Verdi's Don Carlos.

Fun times.

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[public entry #12]

Feb 15, 2008 - 05:16 PM

The key to happiness.

Happy

I have been in a state of ecstasy for the past few weeks—pretty much like Peter Gibbons from Office Space after being hypnotized. I have found the secret to absolute happiness in daily life. It boils down to two things:

1. Understanding (rationalization)
2. No drama

Technically, no drama is a result of good understanding, but both facets are of equal importance.

The first part is the hardest: you must be a critical thinker so that you can understand why people do what they do. If one is depressed because he or she is inadequate in his or her field, then he or she should understand that that is just a temporary problem. Once one rationalizes that notion of future possibility, he can be happy in the present, comfortably plotting out a plan of action using critical thinking skills. If something is wrong now, one should know that it can be fixed (if it can't be fixed, then one must find something else or be satisfied with nothing). If everyone in a room hates you because of what you think, step back and understand where the difference lies and use diplomacy to find common ground.

The second part is easy: eliminate any drama you might have from your life. Usually, drama is a mutual force. If someone makes a scene about one of your flaws, and you retaliate with increased scenery, then you have set forth drama. End it before it becomes a duel by acknowledging the validity of that person's thoughts and asking how you can improve. Therefore, if you go without using negativity as a weapon in those situations, you can avoid drama entirely. No drama = happiness.

Down to its core nature, the key to happiness is positivity. If one can only be negative, acknowledge this problem and become positive. Heck, even stoicism is better than negativity.

Also, my happiness might come from a new espresso candy I've been eating.

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[public entry #11]

Sep 26, 2007 - 09:07 PM

AAAAAAHHHHH!!!!

Angry

Just for future reference, I will present a fully accurate transcript of part of today's voice lesson. (AO is I, and CM is the teacher).

CM: Did you hear the release that time?
AO: Sure.
CM: Is that a yes or a no?
AO: That is a yes.
CM: Are you getting frustrated?
AO: No.
CM: You're not, huh? Because your sarcasm is increasing. Are you aware of that?
AO: Am I aware? Yes.
CM: Is that your intention to be more sarcastic?
AO: No.
CM: Is it something that you wish to continue?
AO: No.
CM: That's great, because I don't want it to continue either.
AO: All right.
CM: Is there something that you would like to complain about?
AO: Well, no. You just asked if I heard it, I said sure, you asked if it were yes or no, and I said Yes.
CM: And that is what you would like to complain about?
AO: No, I mean, it is what happened. It is what I perceived. No complaints thus far.

(silence and more exercises)

CM: What repertoire would you like to sing today?
AO: I will let that be up to you.
CM: What did you prepare?
AO: Well, I have to admit that most of the week was spent getting the scores, but I have still the Brahms prepared, and that is— I've been working on the Brahms because that was the score to which I had access since our last lesson, therefore, that is the one that I have prepared.
CM: How about Nicht mehr zu dir zu gehen?
AO: All right.

(entire song is sung)

AO: I wasn't intense enough. It's pianissimo, but it should have more energy. It has an exclamation point at the end of it.
CM: There are many wonderful things about that. Yep. For sure. So, you take care.
AO: All right. (long pause) You too.

I will tell you what is wrong with this. He said "You take care" to make me leave the studio, essentially, without any commentary at all on what I could improve upon in the piece, and five minutes earlier than a lesson usually ends.

I was deceptive, I now realize. I was, in fact, extremely frustrated, and was not sarcastic as far as I knew at the time at any point in the lesson. The truth is, though, that I was asked too quickly to think out an answer well.

Can any of you see how this put me in an awkward position? The lesson was nothing but tension building more and more, with him constantly mocking me, telling me that I am wrong on purpose, getting to a point, where it turns into a you're-doing-it-wrong-try-again-you're-doing-it-wrong-try-again approach to pedagogy. For some reason he is not receiving the notion that I am indeed hyperventilating throughout the lesson every time he attacks my musicianship, my personality, and my body language. I am in no point sarcastic, as far as I can tell. I am not an insincere person, and my sarcasm, when used, is almost always sincere and genial.

I will probably talk to him tomorrow about it. I can't let this make me lose ten pounds in a week from lack of appetite like the last time he did this crap did. This entry itself was hard to write without just tensing up, screaming, and giving up.

Oh, all right. AHHHHH!

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[public entry #10]

Jul 30, 2007 - 12:37 PM

Reception woes

Tired

Last Saturday night, I worked at a wedding reception that had to have cost at least $150,000 to put on. It was a fraternity fund-raiser to work as bussers for it. As it was great for getting funds fast, we were glad to do it. I walked in tux shoes in a general route within the giant air-conditioned tent, which included four rooms: one room for the bridal cake; one room for the groom's cake; one large room containing a dance floor and band on one side, a large wet bar on the other side, and a very large dinner table in the middle, containing Alaskan salmon, Alaskan king crab, oysters on the half shell, fried catfish, beef tenderloin, lollipop lamb chops, rolls, grilled shrimp, etc., and on the wall of that room there was a sushi bar from the Japanese restaurant from Memphis, Sekisui; and one room being the entrance to the place, containing another wet bar and large table filled with gourmet finger foods. In the main room, there were double doors leading to what looked to be the most luxurious port-o-potty I have ever seen, being basically a fine restaurant bathroom (with three or four commodes and three sinks each), only it had wheels underneath. That was just the reception tent, too. Outside the entrance was a path with a candy bar (a bar with candy) in the middle of it, and at the end a finely decorated swimming pool where nearby was a third wet bar, which had direct access to the cigar bar.

So, six hours of walking in circles with a silver tray to take people's only half-drunk bottles of beer and glasses of wine, plus their only half-eaten plates now leads to my legs still being sore, now being about 36 hours since. I don't mind being a servant for six hours, being barely recognized as a human being if it means money goes to the chapter.

It was actually fairly fun. I just tolerated how what appeared to be my superior would give me long tutorials on how to open doors for guests, when to open both, or just one, etc. While she was more than irksome, I was able to at least enjoy the whole money-making aspect of it all. Plus, as I became quite hungry (most of us had not yet eaten supper by 12:30 a.m.), I would walk by the rolls or tenderloin, and throw one in my mouth.

Good experience.

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[public entry #9]

Jul 3, 2007 - 01:47 PM

Español

I am now auditing Spanish 102, just to make sure I am in the right state of mind when I begin taking Spanish 201 in the fall.

School is cool, especially when it is free (no pay, no credit. Why not learn some Spanish?).

Estoy contento.

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Jul 2, 2007 - 08:04 PM

No more British Lit.

I have not only finished the wrath of the professor about which I wrote of last time, but have completed an intensive summer course of the first part of British Literature (from Beowulf to Pope), both of which yielding A's.

Hooray!

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[public entry #7]

Apr 22, 2007 - 07:10 PM

Oy.

My British Literature class haunts me night and day.

Nothing I ever present to her, regardless of the amount of effort and knowledge put forth, is ever sufficient for her approval. Every minute I am in that class, I fear her condemnation and reinforcement of my own inadequacy. I wish to share with you her test format.

The first section of her test is a ten-minute section, where one must identify three items, telling not only where each item originates, but who wrote each one, and how that matter functions in the work, as well as how it relates to the matter of the work.

The second section of her test is another ten-minute section, where one must produce a full literary analysis of a passage from a poem, picked randomly from an entire period of poetry. One must reveal all the image patterns, all the symbols, and all the poetic devices used, telling how each works to reveal the matter of the poem.

The third section is a thirty-minute section, where one must write a five-paragraph, well-developed, thesis-based paper on a surprise prompt about an overriding theme in all the literature of the period. This must be done by hand in thirty minutes, mentioning at least three authors, with very specific references to their works.

It is a fifty-minute test, and is done entirely on paper with a pen. Simply put, it is physiologically impossible, even if you know what you want to write and everything that is necessary for an A. The test is not graded by any sort of rubric, but is just looked at and judged according to its worth to the teacher.

On the last such test, I made a 72.8 out of 100. To compare, my average grade at this institution is 100% (4.0).

I asked her why I made so low a grade. She responded, "Because, Andrew, you cut short a few times."

I cannot imagine why that is.

---

Every moment I am in her presence, I become physically less healthy. My abdominal muscles begin tensing up, along with my gag muscles. The gag muscle doesn't relax until about an hour after she has left my presence.

I wish she had some sort of grasp of how her class is causing such emotional and physical strain on her students.

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[public entry #6]

Mar 5, 2007 - 07:00 PM

Sick!

Sick

My British Literature teacher gives me woe.

Over this weekend, I have been sick. That sickness includes nausea, upset stomach, vomitting, and diarrhea. It has been a very irksome weekend, as it is an illness that is worst in the morning and only moderate in the afternoon and evening. I began to feel the effects of this Thursday evening, but Friday, I was unable to go on a choir concert daytrip. My nausea was simply too great. It was unpleasant to not be able to go with them. Throughout the day, I was rather weak and slept throughout most of it. Saturday, when I woke up after 10 and a half hours of sleep, I felt 100% better, suffering none of the symptoms. So, I went to sleep that evening to wake up at 4:30 a.m., vomitting. The rest of the day, I was back into the sickness, but was able to perk up enough to perform a choral concert in which I was a soloist.

So, today, I awoke around 6:30 a.m. and took a shower, still rather nauseated. I tried to relax, but the illness would not calm down. So, at 7:45 a.m., I vomitted. This was bad enough, but the real kicker was that I had a midterm exam in a crucial class at 8:00 a.m. This exam was a fifty-minute, timed writing test that tested arduously one's knowledge of all the poets and authors discussed in the class to that point (about 800 pages of text). In thirty minutes of it, a five-paragraph (intro, three body paragraphs, and conclusion) essay had to be produced quickly. I approached her in the classroom at 7:55 a.m., saying that I was simply too sick to take the exam at that moment, and asked that she test me at another time. When I asked if she gives make-up exams, she said, "Not usually." When I stated my case that I had vomitted about a gallon that morning, she was at that moment convinced that I should take it another time.

So, I left the classroom and tried to relax near a bathroom for the hour that the test was being given. By 9:00, I was feeling significantly better. I walked to my next class, wherein I had the midterm for my Aural Theory class at around 9:30, a singing exam that lasted about two minutes or so maximum. It was rather low-stress, just singing some solfege syllables to outline particular chords, like the i, the minor v, the German sixth, etc. I did that exam in moderate health, and proceeded to my other two classes, where I participated as best I could.

At 11:54 a.m., I went to the British Literature professor and asked for a make-up time, and she was startled to see me not sick. I said that I felt better and that I would like to take the test at 3:00 p.m. that day. She agreed, and I waited around for that time.

When 3:00 came, I went to her office, she guided me to the place to take it, and gave me the test and directions. I completed the test with just enough time to read over my work, and then I handed it to her. This began a conversation about the nature of sickness.

She was noticeably angry with me that I did not contact her earlier than right before the exam about my unpredictable illness. She said, "You should have called me twenty minutes before the exam." I told her, "I vomitted fifteen minutes before the exam." She insisted that I knew that I would be unable to take the test and that I should have called her. I insisted that I had no way of knowing if I could have made it through a 50-minute timed test while under severe digestive discomfort. She said to me that she knew that I had "gone to other classes and taken other tests." She told me to be more "consistently sick" next time. "Either you are sick or you are not sick." She is absolutely right, in that I was sick at 8:00, but was not sick at 9:30.

The only way that she could know that I had "taken other tests" would be that the proctor of the aural theory test (her very piano teacher) told her that she had administered the test to me. I judge this to be the case, as since this morning, the aural theory teacher has not indicated at any point any sort of smile or greeting, despite many attempts to greet her.

I think I did the right things. Had I followed her advice, I would either have given her enough time to convince me to take the test at 8:00, not get near to finishing it from thinking about not vomitting (since the nearest bathroom is about 20 yards away), then do the rest of my classes poorly from the horror of how badly I performed on the exam that morning... OR I would have gone home and had to have retaken two midterms later and get notes from someone on another two classes and find a medical excuse form, despite being healthy enough to take one midterm and attend two classes.

Woe is me!

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